Black Box Reveals Germanwings’ Co-Pilot Intentionally Crashed Plane

Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa and the owner of Germanwings, released a statement after audio from the black box recordings was made public. Spohr says the actions of 28-year-old Andreas Lubitz have left him speechless. Lubitz was trained to operate the Airbus 320 that he crashed into the mountains just eight minutes after take-off, killing all 144 people onboard.

Officials say Lubitz locked the pilot out of the cockpit when he left to use the bathroom. In the black box recording, you can hear the pilot’s attempts to break into the cockpit while passengers are screaming for their lives.

“We hear the pilot calling, asking to regain access to the cockpit, through the phone used to communicate between the cabin and the cockpit. There was zero response from the co-pilot.” The pilot failed to gain entry and the recording ends with the blaring of a proximity alarm, indicating that the impact with the Alps was imminent.

Lubitz was welcomed into the Germanwings company straight out of flight school in 2013. He only had 630 hours of flight time, which is fairly low for a co-pilot.

Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin says Lubitz wanted to crash the plane, but they are unaware if his motive was terrorism.